


Speechless

by Person



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, cliche: speech-deprived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/pseuds/Person
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The human players found a way to bring back their dreamself-less dead and offered it to the trolls once they were done.  Unfortunately, it turns out that sometimes the healing process isn't quite as complete as they would have hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speechless

The trolls gave up on their dead, if a kiss wasn't enough to revive them. They might rage at the killers. They might do their best to convince themselves that they were lucky just to have the dream bubbles available for visits. They might hate that the deaths had happened, which in itself made them unusual for their people; death was an unavoidable part of troll life, they were expected to move past it quickly with the exception of payback scenarios. But they didn't try to change it. Not even Aradia did, and she was the one most likely to have success when time itself danced to her whim.

But when the human children lost one of their players with no dreamself or god tier possible to revive them they refused to accept that what had happened was immutable. They'd lost too much too quickly; their guardians, their world, whatever futures they'd once hoped for themselves. They wouldn't _allow_ the game to steal away one of their own on top of everything else, wouldn't believe that they just had to be content with visiting dreams. They insisted that there had to be some way to bring back the dead that didn't require dreamselves, that if the game _really_ expected its players to restore their species in their new universe than it wouldn't remove one set of genes from the human equivalent of the eventual slurry without leaving some way to restore them. It might take completing a nearly impossible quest, or destroying a hidden boss that made Jack look like a newly hatched grub in comparison, but they wouldn't give up until they'd brought their dead friend back.

And somehow they found that way. The pieces of the Device that were scattered across their session's four worlds which would forge new bodies for dead players. The two halves of the instructions for putting it together which were hidden in the hearts of Derse and the ruined Prospit. The exact spot within the Furthest Ring where it needed to be built so it could pull the soul of a dead player out of the dreambubbles and into the fresh shell it created for them. They didn't skip a single step, did everything perfectly so the resurrection went off without a single hitch.

Then they proved once and for all how much better they were than the ones who had made them. Because the moment their own dead had safely returned to life they offered up their Device, freely and without a single catch, so the trolls could bring back the one's they'd lost in spite of the fact that Jack's rampage through their session had surely destroyed the pieces to their own Device.

* * *

Kanaya was the only one who stayed away during the resurrection process. They'd seen what would happen when the kids did it, and she didn't want to risk ruining everything if the sight of so much blood drove her into a feeding frenzy. The body-creation portion was much more messy-looking than ectobiology's neatly appearing grubs, possibly one last test to weed out players unworthy of using it; at least one person with a strong stomach needed to watch the entire time the body formed so they could flip the switch to draw in the soul the moment it was complete. If they looked away and misjudged the time until completion by more than a couple of minutes they would be too late, the Device wouldn't keep a body alive on its own for long.

The process did start much the way ectobiology did, with a screen displaying the person it would be scanning, the only difference being that instead of some random restful moment in their life it started focused on their death and then rewound until the moment before the fatal wound. But from there everything went differently; it looked at first like nothing at all was happening, then suddenly globs of formless flesh would seem to appear out of nowhere in the tube the bodies formed in when the cells at work multiplied to the point that parts were large enough to see.

In a morbid display those lumps grew into organs, floating freely in the tube until a skeleton started to grow, muscle appearing around it almost as quickly and giving the whole body shape. Veins spread out, pumping blood even as they appeared, and the liquid in the tube changed color slightly as they grew a little too slowly to entirely contain the flow.

It was somewhere around that point it all became, to Aradia's eyes, more interesting than grotesque; innards were a common enough sight on Alternia, but they were always a mess torn apart by violence. She'd never seen just how _neatly_ their bodies fit together beneath their skin, the way every part had just its right place.

Then suddenly she'd find herself thinking of Equius, and how he must have known that already. After all, he'd been able to build a body of wires and steel that was close enough to the real thing for her soul to find a home in it.

Vriska was the first person that they brought back, a strange choice considering that she was the one whose restoration they'd spent the most time debating. There had been no question that they'd leave Eridan dead for his crimes, and it hadn't taken much thought to realize that even if they could find sopor slime to force into Gamzee's mouth the instant he was released from the tank there was no way they'd be able to get together a lifetime supply of it, but she had been trickier. She was mostly coming back because of John--because he wanted her to be alive, and because they owed the humans for even lending them the Device--but oddly Karkat had spoken up for her as well, muttering something about 'that stupid fucking Trollian log.'

So they huddled together, Aradia and Sollux and Karkat and Terezi, while the humans stood to the side, and they all watched the first body appear in cerulean hues before it was covered in grey skin. They kept their eyes fixed on it, not even aware of whose hands they were squeezing or whose shoulder they leaned against as they watched her appear with all their hopes pinned on her. And though they told themselves that she was first to pay their debt to John quickly, they all knew that it was just as much because she was the one they'd care least about losing if something went wrong.

But the closest anything bad came to happening was after Vriska was ejected from the tube, when the instant after her eyes opened they narrowed and in a tone that all the other trolls recognized as meaning danger she sing-songed out, "Tereeeeeeeezi--"

Only to be cut off by John latching onto her with a massive bear hug. Even Vriska's vengeful anger couldn't well stand up to a cheerful human boy yammering at her about how he'd already picked the _perfect_ human movie for them to watch to celebrate her coming back to life, she'd love _The Rock_ it even had Nic Cage in it!

Feferi was next, because Sollux had been through so much lately that they thought he deserved to be reunited with his matesprit quickly, and then Tavros because he'd been waiting longest since his death.

But there they reached the first time that something strange happened in the resurrection process. When the Device scanned the past for a moment to chose it started at his death as always, but it kept going even beyond the point where he lost the gaping hole in his torso. It went back past him visiting his weapon chest, falling up stairs, wandering all over the labs looking perfectly healthy, and they got more and more confused over why it wasn't stopping.

Equius was unattaching his new legs--and Aradia found herself shaking a little with anticipation at the sight--Kanaya carried the old ones back to him and buried her chainsaw between the two halves of him before yanking it sharply upward and leaving him in one piece, and off to the side of them Rose suddenly said, "Ah," just before the display finally froze and began the scan.

Karkat whipped his head around to face Rose. "'Ah'?" he repeated, "What they fuck is 'Ah'?"

"Ah, so that's what it was looking for," she said, then sighed when no one seemed to get it. "It couldn't very well bring him back with his lower half missing, he'd only bleed out again immediately. It was searching for a moment he could survive."

Vriska snickered suddenly, staring into the tank where his broken spine could be seen clearly. "Hope he didn't get _too_ used to not being completely useless, because there's no way he's brave enough to let a rainbow drinker spill that much of his blood!"

Before she could say anything worse John dragged her off, his feet pulling off the ground as he asked her to go back to their lab with him and see if she could remember where Tavros' chair was.

Having to catch Tavros and see the expression on his face when he realized he was paralyzed again was a slight downer on the event, but they knew it was just a matter of time before Equius could build him a new set of legs; even if Kanaya didn't trust herself to do the amputation again it wasn't as if none of the rest of them used bladed weapons.

Then there were only two left, Nepeta, who greeted them all cheerfully even with an arm dangling limply at her side, and then Equius at last. Aradia pulled away from the group as he started to form, fumblingly reaching out to find the soul switch without taking her eyes off him. She wanted to be the one to pull him back into himself, to restore him as he had once restored her, and didn't care if Karkat saw it as his leaderly duty.

But she found herself hesitating at the crucial moment, squinting at his neck through the blue-tinted liquid he was floating in. There seemed to be bruising around his throat still and it made her unsure whether the process was really complete or if it would fade if she waited a moment longer. It was only when he remained unchanged for several seconds more that she realized she didn't dare wait any longer when the crucial moments where the Device held the life in his body were ticking away.

She tossed the switch. Then a minute later she was on one side of him, squeezing his hand tightly, and Nepeta was on the other giving him a one-armed hug, and she found herself whispering again and again, "You're back, you're back, everything's going to be fine now and you're back..."

He looked between the two of them, his eyes for once unhidden so she could see the wonder in them when he looked down at her gladly holding onto him, then he opened his mouth the speak.

Nothing came out but a voiceless rasp.

* * *

It made sense, when they got over the shock enough to think it through. It should even have been an expected possibility, if they hadn't all been so wrapped up in the idea that everything was going well. It must have been the humans rubbing off on them, because that definitely wasn't a trollish state of mind.

They'd seen with Tavros' legs and Nepeta's broken arm that the Device left non-fatal injuries as they were. Heck, they'd seen it with Equius' own broken horn, and once he'd opened his mouth in his missing teeth. It would repair any damage the garrote had done that would keep him from breathing, but...

Their throats had different parts for speaking and for breathing. He could live perfectly well without a functioning chitinous windhole if it had been crushed before he died. It was just a terrible stroke of bad luck that he was the only one besides Nepeta who hadn't been killed in such a quick clean stroke that the entire deathblow needed to be healed to restore them, and that unlike his moirail his wound wasn't one which would be healed with time.

Vriska laughed herself sick when she got back and learned what happened, and Aradia felt the first flash of something even vaguely like hatred that she'd experienced since returning to life had flooded her with joy. But Vriska seemed unconcerned by anyone's reactions; "Oh, pleeeeeeeease," she called out to them, "you all see how rich this is! After all his fussing about the hemospectrum he'd be right on the list for culling no matter how blue he is if we were back home." Then she raised an eyebrow at him, her eyes glittering with fiendish humor, and added, "Or he'd spend his life stuck down with the lowblood footsoldiers; can't get any higher if you can't give orders! Which would be worse, Equius?"

Aradia's bad feelings only grew as she watched Equius sink into himself at her words, and more still when she looked around and saw in Karkat's face, and Sollux's, and even Kanaya's that they were agreeing with her even if they said nothing. It _was_ funny, in a darkly ironic way, to see the one who'd been most wrapped up in the blood caste system pulled down to the level of the lowest of the low.

And Aradia knew that not that long ago, before the warm red rush of life had pushed everything black out of her, she would have been the one in Vriska's place and her words would have been much more cruel. She might even have offered to cull him herself if he wanted, just to see if his belief in the system was really so unwavering that he'd offer up his own neck if its rules told him he'd lost his right to live.

She was still trying to think of how to react, of something she could say to take some of the sting out of Vriska's barbs, when a shriek of twisting metal indicated that Equius was getting up and leaving the chair he'd been sitting in a twisted wreck behind him. He walked out of the room, his posture defeated, and Nepeta scurried after him.

Aradia remained where she was, staring after them. For the first time in as long as she could remember she had no idea what she should do.

* * *

Days passed with no change. Equius kept almost entirely to himself, not even using his computer to communicate with them through Trollian. He let Nepeta stay by his side, and Aradia as often as she wanted to be there, but he avoided everyone else and didn't even react much to the two them.

Aradia could see that even the trolls who liked him least were starting to feel guilty about driving him away. Maybe it would have been different if they could hear him battling robots down in the basement to make them think he was working things out in his own way, but he remained unusually silent and still. But none of them tried to offer any help.

Finally she decided that she'd had enough. She didn't know if she'd be able to break him out of his funk, but she couldn't just go on wavering uncertainly and hoping he might snap out of it on his own if she just waited.

She walked down to the room he'd been haunting with a laptop held under her arm, keeping her back straight and her stride strong in the hopes that she'd at least be able to project confidence even if she didn't really feel it. She turned her attention first to Nepeta, who was curled up at his side, asking, "Would you be okay with leaving us alone for a minute?"

Nepeta must have seen that Aradia had a plan in her face, because she offered a weak smile then darted out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Aradia sat the computer down on a stool, fiddling with it a moment to open a word processor than shoving it beside him. That finished she stood up straight, planted her hands on her hips, and frowned down at him sternly. "Are you _trying_ to make me and Nepeta jealous?" she asked, tapping her foot on the ground for good measure.

 _That_ finally caught his attention, his eyes flying up to meet her's as a confused frown grew on his face.

"I can't think of any _other_ reason you'd be courting pity from everyone we know, though you spent so long hoping that my feelings would stop flipping black that I don't know _why_ you'd test it when you've finally gotten what you wanted." She walked slowly forward until he needed to crane his head back to keep his eyes on her, the blue band around his throat showing clearly, and she reached out to caress the mark. "You're much too smart to really spend so much time wallowing in self-pity over something like this in front of _me_. After all, you're the only one besides Vriska who knew about those sweeps when I couldn't even be seen or felt, let alone heard." She slid her hand up to cup his cheek and leaned her forehead against his. His skin was starting to grow damp, which she took as a good sign. "It would be a little insulting if you started implying that there was anything wrong with talking through text alone."

There was a moment of stillness where she wasn't sure if she'd made any impact on him at all, then his head slowly turned beneath hers to face the laptop. He reached out one hand, his other arm wrapping gingerly around her waist, and a moment later the previously blank file read 'D --> Perhaps I have been f001ish Forgive me'

She laughed, and tried to hold back the wetness stinging at her eyes. "It's okay, just don't do it again."


End file.
